Wind Songs: Slow And Easy And Methodical

Today was an incredibly beautiful, sunny and mild day.

After spending the morning chipping away at a bunch of housekeeping items at work and finally clearing out my In-box that was swamped while I was away in Sitka, I parked my car at a local grocery store parking lot and walked down to Centennial Hall to watch Sean Parnells' swearing in as the Governor of Alaska.

There were a couple of hundred people in the room, five big screens inside the ballroom and one outside in the hallway, and then cake and coffee.

I could not take pictures, listened to the speeches, and left before the cake and coffee.

It was my first experience witnessing such an event and I was glad that I stopped by.

After leaving Centennial Hall I walked back to the grocery store, grabbed a quick coffee and muffin for lunch (I shoulda stayed for the cake I guess), and then drove across the Juneau-Douglas bridge.

After driving almost completely around the round-about I pulled into a small convenience store parking lot close to the bridge and got out of my car.

I did not have much time before needing to get back to work, but wanted to take a few minutes to both enjoy this unexpectedly warm and very sunny day and to take some pictures of the mountains.

A picture on the Juneau side, of the mountains behind the grocery store slash coffee slash muffin store..........

A very friendly man feeding soup to his very friendly dog who was waiting patiently in the bed of the truck..........

These shots were taken from the parking lot of the convenience store right across the bridge over on Douglas.

Deep breathe Karin.

Don't get wound up too tight.

Take it slow and easy and methodically.

And really take a moment to see and feel this beautiful day.

Looking down the channel and towards S Douglas.

A truly beautiful moment...........

Juneau-Douglas Bridge looking back towards town.

The bridge is about a mile from the center of downtown Juneau..............

Raven footprints in the snow...........

And ducks in the channel.............

A Douglas home and Douglas mountain.

Eaglecrest Ski Resort is expected to open this coming weekend. They have something like five feet of snow up there right now..........

Just as I was getting ready to leave I heard someone behind me call my name.

I turned and saw one of my part-time employees smiling at me from behind the steering wheel of his SUV.

He asked me what I was doing and when I told him and said that I was getting ready to leave, he asked me if I had been to an overlook just a mile down the road.

I was not sure where he meant so followed him in my car.

I had been to this place once before, just a few weeks after arriving in Juneau, and while I was still travelling on foot.

I had forgotten about this overlook, and after talking about some work related issues we went our separate ways. He heading back to downtown Juneau and me spending more time taking pictures before finally heading back to work.

I found myself at a very lovely little overlook that was hidden in the trees.

Beautiful views of the mountains and of the city across the channel.................

Standing at this place overlooking the channel, I could clearly see the entire boardwalk and downtown marina area.

And I suddenly realized that I had missed my chance.

This would have been an excellent place to take pictures of the summer cruiseships (sometimes five at a time) as they cruised the channel, docked at the boardwalk, and dropped off their hundreds of thousands of passengers for the day..............